Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Take Ownership, be Responsible

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Take Ownership, be Responsible

My colleague sent this letter to the newspaper. She asked me to publish the letter in my blog.

TAKING OWNERSHIP, BE RESPONSIBILE

My daughter is in Nursery Class at a local kindergarten. Her kindergarten is organising a trip to the zoo the end of this month. My daughter brought back the parent’s consent form for this trip. I was appalled to see the following clause in the consent form: "I shall not hold the Centre responsible for any mishap during the trip".

I am indeed surprised to know that a kindergarten, that is suppose to take responsibility of the children when they are at school and at school activities would disregard their basic responsibility in such an outright manner.

Such a clause is indeed a blank cheque for the school to be taken a child safety very lightly. It now makes me wonder if the school would also completely write off their responsibility of my child’s safety if something was to happen during school hours.

If the school does not want to take responsibility, then should they organize such an activity? Is the school worried about their financial responsibility in case an accident occurs? Or are they just being very kiasu? Or is the school reflecting the kind of social fabric that we Singaporean are made up of: that it is not my problem, it someone else’s problem.

I believe that my daughter’s kindergarten is not unique in having such a disclaimer clause in the consent form. I believe the school is merely following guidelines set by the Ministry of Education. If so, then is it indeed the right of every parent to know why schools should organize activities that they don’t want to take responsibility of.

Would I trust my daughter to be sent out with anyone who irks their responsibility of taking care of her safety and well-being? I definitely would not.

Babita Rai

2 comments:

Victor Foo said...: I do not think the school is trying to irks their responsibility of taking good care of the children safety and, or well-being by inserting such clause in the consent form.

My daughter is currently in kindergarten (PCF-K2) and she has been participating in most of the school outdoor activities.

I have acknowledged the consent form that you mentioned - and they have never failed to exclude this clause !

I think you are not wrong that the school action is purely being "kiasu".; August 17, 2006 3:39 PM
Victor Foo said...: It is obvious that the disclaimer clause is to protect the organization - which in this scenario, is The People's Action Party Community Foundation (PCF). Perhaps another 'just-in-case' attitude.

However, regardless 'standard practice' or not, I will not wish to take away the fact it is the responsible of the centre staff to ensure safety of the children participating in their school outdoor activities.

For the parents, it is a matter of whether you want to accept this arrangement, or risk having your child to lose out in their outdoor education, where they are able to see in real-life what they learnt in their syllabus instead.

As for me, I realized that the centre staff do take extra care of the children during their school outdoor activities and this is good enough for me though.; August 18, 2006 12:50 PM